


Worth Laughing About

by LadyLuckDoubt



Category: Gyakuten Saiban | Ace Attorney
Genre: Angst, Canon-Compliant, Gen, One-Shot, Phoenix Wright Kink Meme, Post-Game, character piece
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-24
Updated: 2011-10-24
Packaged: 2017-10-24 22:22:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/268527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyLuckDoubt/pseuds/LadyLuckDoubt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Calisto Yew thinking about her life following the events of Ace Attorney Investigations. Obviously, there are spoilers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Worth Laughing About

**Author's Note:**

> I've always liked Ace Attorney's sassy and smart and self-reliant female characters, and Calisto Yew is no exception. So when someone on the Kink Meme wanted to see this: _Something sympathetic to Yew, please. Can take whatever form you want, so long as it doesn't play her the way most everything else in these threads do._ \-- which I took to mean a Calisto who was equal parts killer and puppet, central yet disposable, bound by her choices and other people's decision-making-- rather than a sociopath-- I really liked the idea.
> 
> So this is Calisto, post-AAI, following her arrest, thinking about her situation.

It can't be the end for her now, and it's not  _going_  to be-- she didn't come this far, she didn't survive this much-- to be caught like this, to watch it all fold in on itself this way. She's a professional, this is her job, her title, her identity: the only one which has been a constant for her, the only one she's been  _allowed_  to call her own.

She's a spy and an assassin and a survivor. They're the only truths. That's what she is more than a name or an appearance or a style. That's her, more than flesh, blood or hair colour.

  
She's frustrated and cramped in the police van leading her, in hearse-like speed-- to the detention centre.

Damn him; damn them;  _fuck_  Amano, she thinks viciously as she wriggles against the walls confining her in the van, the hand cuffs cutting into her wrists. She can barely move, she's uncomfortable-- the confines of the transport van are brutal and hard, and every time the vehicle lurches, she is knocked against ice-cold panels and feels a shudder run through her tiny body.

  
She finds herself thinking of Lang absently; they were a few good years with Lang-- she supported him, he supported her-- if she could find it within herself to care, she'd shed a few tears for him.

He could be arrogant, but he was a good man, or what she thinks  _good_   _might_  be. She's not sure, but he was one of the few in the industry who genuinely gave a shit about people, who hadn't been blunted into nothing more than a mouthpiece for his employer. Lang liked her, and he was one of the few she'd worked with who'd respected her. 

In-- how many years has it been now?-- (she's nameless and ageless and without identity-- and it's been  _years_ , time overlapping time, events and circumstances to be rearranged by powers above her so she can slip into the cast easily)-- he was the first she could honestly call a good boss, at least; probably the only person who used his power responsibly and still recognised his subordinates as individuals, as human beings with identities and personalities and their own...  _own-ness_.

She wonders if any of his men will realise that and appreciate it as much as she does.

  
She's Calisto Yew, she's Shih-na, she's Cam Eelion, she's Ema Nymton, she's Eva Mysterious, she's Jane Dough, she's a dozen more identities which have been used for a night, for a few hours, an introduction. She's names pulled out of a hat on a whim or made up on the spot for a laugh, names so ridiculous that she  _dares_  herself to laugh when she knows she mustn't. 

Her laughter is her trademark, but for now she can't laugh. When she was little, someone told her to laugh and the world would laugh with her, to cry and she'd cry alone.

She's determined not to cry. There's a will, and there's a way out of this, she's made of tougher things than a determined little puncy prosecutor and an annoying brat-- the annoying brat who was...

 

 

The tears fall, surprisingly enough, when she thinks about Byrne Faraday. She thought she'd dealt with that years ago. She knew she had to, and she'd liked Byrne-- in the industry, of course, you're not  _meant_  to like people; people are sheep-- faceless, insignificant chunks of animated meat making their inevitable crawl towards death. They're pawns to be shifted, they're numbers to be crunched, there's nothing lovable or likeable about them usually, they're simple organic matter; she's known this since she was young.

  
But Byrne Faraday was... abnormal. Initially amusing. A devillish smile under a stern professional facade, a strange sense of humour and an almost mischievious desire for a little chaos every now and then, Byrne was so subversively  _improper_  in a world which prided itself on stiff upper lips and manners and tradition and seriousness. He was a walking collection of contradictions-- perhaps that was what had appealed to her-- she could empathise to some degree.

She'd never  _loved_  Byrne, but perhaps she'd come close. Byrne was married, Byrne had a daughter he thought the world of when he saw her-- but Byrne loved women and he relished an intelligent discussion and came to life in an argument; beneath the suit and the tied-back hair and the wedding ring there was a free spirit which couldn't be harnessed by convention.

He'd been pretty good in bed, too, she thought with a sly smile in an attempt to stop crying. 

  
The van rolled over something, causing her to jump in her seat and press her spine into the wall behind her to dull the impact. In her line of work, confined spaces didn't bother her because she knew she wouldn't stay in them forever; this was  _different_ ; this was moving from a confined space into another-- into a lockup cell, and then into prison, most likely.

  
She wonders about Lang, what he was doing  _now_ ; she hadn't killed anyone, but she knew to Lang, betrayal would be worse than murder; murder could be justified; betrayal was selfish and... Lang wasn't going to stand up for her; she'd lost him, another discard, someone else to try to forget even though the older she got, the more she remembered. Wasn't it supposed to work the other way?

The more humanity disgusted her, the more she remembered the examples thereof which stood out because they were different. It made her uncomfortable; she wasn't young and sensitive and green anymore, she was old enough to know better.

  
 _Was_  she selfish? She wasn't sure. She did things because they had to be done. She did things because they were expected of her. She did things because she was paid, and if she didn't do them, she'd find herself a dead and insignificant Jane Doe at the bottom of a river or walled up inside an incomplete construction; it was easier to go with the tides as everyone else did. She was smart enough to realise that getting out wasn't an option, there was no respite and there were no breaks, that life had become about running and hiding and spying and covering up the cracks with some more concealer and waterproof mascara.

Does that make her selfish or gutless? She'd rather be selfish, she thinks as, despite the cuffs, she swivels her body and reaches for her compact before remembering it's been taken from her. It's an automatic, knee-jerk reaction, she realises. Funny how the body knows how to react when the rest of her doesn't.

Not having her makeup makes her feel horribly naked. She's used to it as a distraction-- others bite their nails or smoke cigarettes or play with their hair or eat things; she adjusts her appearance. That's all she is, that's all her life is, a well-crafted appearance, an act to convince people.

 

 

She wonders if she's ever thought she was playing Amano-- she was getting paid by him, wasn't she?-- but she knows he's not going to come after her. Unlike Lang, who won't because he's hurt, Amano doesn't care, she's disposable and replaceable and just collateral damage. Amano will be lining up that shining blonde defense attorney of his, the coolest defense in the west-- Amano will get off.

She knows how justice works; one of her many surprising truths was that she  _did_  receive a legal education-- justice has a ravenous appetite and will be appeased with  _someone_  being found guilty-- and when Amano gets off, she'll be thrown into its jaws.

Amano; such a nice, sweet old man. Typical of why it's not a wise idea to trust anyone.

She feels a jolt as the van stops; they've left her no windows and it's still early in the morning so it's only her and the darkness and the purr of the engine and the bumps in the road. She doesn't know where she is, but she knows where she's going. She distracts herself from the fear by thinking about, thinking about...

 _People_. That's all there is, at the end of the day. These pitiful and unintentionally hilarious creatures, bought and sold, driven by urges she doesn't quite understand-- love, justice, hatred, revenge, greed, even-- they're what makes the the world go round, they've been her life despite the fact that she wishes not to get too involved with them, despite the fact that she doesn't want to feel too strongly about them, despite the fact that she would like to do without them-- she can't.

They're foolish and they're fragile and they take themselves too seriously and they're stupid and flawed and they make mistakes, but they're the ones running the show, now, not her.

  
She trusted Lang and Lang trusted her. She trusted Faraday some of the time, and she trusted Badd. The idea of hurting any of them is a side thought, she's not sure if she understands hurt any more. People damage one another, no one is to be taken at face value, and ultimately,  _everyone_  is out for themselves.

She's no different to any of the others. She can't hate Amano because he's only human, though she'd have willingly put a bullet between his eyes in order to make a clean getaway. She wishes she had, or maybe she hadn't-- if she had, one of Amano's other agents would have brought her down; someone else would have, Edgeworth might have. 

She feels cornered and terrified.

She closes her eyes and tries not to think about prison. She doesn't like thinking about fear, about losing her nerve, about circumstances she's not in control of or can't wrangle herself out of.

She forces herself to laugh; she's tired and it shows, she's laughing to herself in the way that cats purr to themselves when distressed. She wishes she could have slept.

 

 

When the van stops and she hears the clack-and-pull of the outer doors open, she sighs with trepidation and blinks in the bright light as gloved hands reach up to help her out. 

She has no formal identity but many. She has no paperwork. She has spent the last week dealing with silly and easily flustered law-enforcement officials who don't know how to deal with her, and maybe the courts won't, either.

The men assisting her from the van and to the confines of the detention centre cannot understand why she's still laughing as she's brought inside through the early morning darkness and the drizzle.

She's a spy, an assassin and a survivor. And they're just people, faceless insignificant things who won't understand her no matter how much they might wish to. And that's worth a laugh sometimes.


End file.
